Harry and Meghan’s cold response to Kate cancer diagnosis

With the news that the Princess of Wales is battling cancer, the reaction from the Duke and Duchess makes for some remarkable – and very brief – reading.

Harry and Meghan’s cold response to Kate cancer diagnosis. Picture: Getty

COMMENT

The whole princess thing. It is otherworldly. The tiaras, the castles, the palaces, the titles, the bowing and the scraping and the gold carriages and the commemorative stamps.

And then comes a moment like today and we get a blunt, truly shocking reminder that Kate the Princess of Wales is indeed an actual live woman and prone to all the vagaries and cruel twists of fate and sorrows as the rest of us.

Australia woke up on Saturday to learn that the Princess of Wales has cancer and is undergoing preventive chemotherapy.

This announcement saw a near immediate outpouring of warm words and compassionate declarations from world leaders (British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, French President Emanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, our own Prime Minister Anthony Albanese), King Charles and Queen Camilla, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the White House. In recent hours, a lot of very powerful people’s speech writers and aides have been very busy honing their cheerleading messages and digging out a nice stream of supportive synonyms.

But over in Montecito? Something else has unfolded.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle released a statement after Kate’s cancer diagnosis. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images for the Invictus Games Foundation

About two and a half hours after the news broke, on both the Prince and Princess of Wales’ social media feeds and on the 6pm BBC news, Prince Harry and Meghan the Duke and Duchess of Sussex joined in with Macron etc and publicly sent Kate well wishes.

“We wish health and healing for Kate and the family, and hope they are able to do so privately and in peace,” they said in a statement.

C’est tous. Le fin. The end. There is no more.

Harry and Meghan might not exactly be on buddy-buddy or even basic speaking terms with Kate and Prince William but let us consider that they put out … one sentence.

(And a sentence that did not include her title or specifically include husband Prince William or their children Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis.)

Maybe as I type the Sussexes are actually busy hand-packing a gift basket full of Meghan’s homemade jams and one of Harry’s hand beaded motivational bracelets and all the therapeutic crystals they could find at home to have it delivered by first class courier to the Waleses’ Adelaide Cottage. Maybe the duke and duchess are currently organising a prayer circle or working out the feasibility of dispatching their favourite reiki master to the UK to do some laying on of hands.

But as far as public signals go, this one sentence, all 22-words of it, makes for some remarkable – and very brief – reading.

NEW: From Harry and Meghan, a message to their sister-in-law, Kate.
“We wish health and healing for Kate and the family, and hope they are able to do so privately and in peace."#PrincessofWales#katemiddleton

— Chris Ship (@chrisshipitv) March 22, 2024

The White House, Macron, Trudeau, the Archbishop of Canterbury, England football manager Gareth Southgate and Wimbledon all managed to put out longer messages.

Even beleaguered Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino took a break from trying to prevent Elon Musk from chewing through his restraints to put out two sentences, praising the princess’ “signature grace”.

American First Lady Jill Biden’s personal message might have been very economical but the emotion and the powerfulness of it – “You are brave, and we love you” – more than makes up for that.

You are brave, and we love you. ~Jill https://t.co/xlt7CcsjPu

— Jill Biden (@FLOTUS) March 22, 2024

The world has responded to Kate’s cancer revelation with a torrent of encouraging and reassuring words. Most of the world that is.

To add to this, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were completely oblivious to Kate Middleton’s cancer diagnosis until it hit headlines across the globe, sources told The New York Post.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were reportedly blindsided, learning of Middleton’s health struggle on the very day the tragic news broke to the world.

“They had no idea, and only learned of the news around the same time the rest of the world found out,” an insider disclosed.

“This goes to show the irreparable damage they have caused,” the source said. “The trust has been broken and the royal family is OK distancing themselves from them.”

The slow-motion splintering of Waleses and the Sussexes has been played out for the masses’ prurient consumption via TV interviews, an entire six-hour Netflix series, podcasts, and a book and for years the duke and duchess have excavated their feelings.

What I find surprising here is that Harry and Meghan have never shied away from doing public large-scale emoting or expressing their innermost thoughts before – so why now?

Yes, yes, there has been that veritable Hoover Dam’s worth of water under the royal bridge in recent years when it comes to William, Kate, Harry and Meghan. However something like a cancer diagnosis surely renders much of what came before redundant, surely it’s a moment of clarity and stocktaking and parking bygones, for a bit anyway. Surely it’s a moment for hands across aisles and white flags to be waved.

Relations between the Waleses and Sussexes have soured in the past four or so years. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

The Sussexes’ response to Kate’s news stands in direct contrast to Harry’s reaction in February after King Charles revealed that he too is battling cancer. (If ever there was a moment to call in someone to sage the palaces and maybe do a spot of feng shui, this is it.)

Within hours of Buckingham Palace revealing His Majesty was undergoing treatment for an unspecified form of the disease, Harry was on his way to London to see his father for a meeting that would only end up lasting 30 minutes. The duke flew 22 hours round trip, and had to find a London hotel for the night for himself and his bodyguards (a couple of trundle beds in a junior suite maybe?) all of which would have cost well into the five, if not the six, figures to be able to offer his support in person.

Prince Harry jumped on a plane to see his father after King Charles’ cancer diagnosis. Picture: Henry Nicholls, AFP

Or contrast Saturday’s 22-word Kate statement with the 622-word one from Harry that he had his barrister David Sherborne read out after the duke’s win in his hacking case against the Mirror Group Newspapers last December. In that one, full of incredibly powerful language, the duke called out the paper’s “hollow sound bites” and it included grand lines like “The journey to justice can be a slow and painful one”, “I’ve been told that slaying dragons will get you burned” and “The mission continues.”

Where is Harry the dragon-slayer today? For Kate, the Sussexes and their team couldn’t even quite muster a second sentence.

Maybe the duke and duchess will put out more words later today but that they could not come up with something a bit meatier and more substantial in the immediate aftermath of the Kate news does not look particularly good.

For two people who are building their brand on a platform of very public caring, their response to the princess’ video stands in stark relief.

For example, earlier this month, the couple travelled to Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two teachers were murdered in a school shooting, to wish the sister of teacher Irma Garcia who died saving little ones’ lives, a happy birthday and to take her a cake. That’s a wonderful, thoughtful and kind thing for the Sussexes to have done and redounds to their commitment to helping others.

But how to reconcile this sort of outward gesture with their sparse selection of words for Kate?

Maybe the Sussexes will have more to say yet on Kate or maybe they are planning on saying it by buying out Southern California’s entire supply of crystals. Maybe.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.